


Mirrorling

by Truthfully



Series: Elsanna Advent Calendar 2016 [9]
Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Cursed!Elsa, F/F, mirror, mirror world, set in random fantasy setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 09:50:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8974858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Truthfully/pseuds/Truthfully
Summary: The newly named Fairweather castle was an ancient place, with history beyond even the new Lord's knowing. As Anna knew, having met the cursed girl named Elsa.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Part one is day 9, part two was day 10 of my Advent.

Elsa couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t in the mirror. It seemed like it had been the whole of her existence. A reflection, a shadow; a being looked over and ultimately ignored. The only reason she knew it hadn’t been was that she could remember her first day in the mirror, that was seared in her memory. However, everything before it she had long forgotten or attributed to dreams.

Such was her lonely life that she had long ago given up on company, rather treating other people as a subject of interest. Something observed, but never interacted with. She knew the maids of the castle better than the steward, had witnessed things that left her blushing and others that made her wish she had the ability to interact with the real world. For she found people like her, lonely, unloved and ignored.

Nonetheless, this was her life. She never hungered, never knew thirst or physical pain, or even grew older so she managed the best she could. Of course, it wouldn’t be a good story if that was all that ever happened, now would it?

After an unknown number of years the castle that held her world of mirrors and shadows became home to a knight. Gifted to him for his services in the war that had recently ravaged the land, he joyously took it in hand. His wife was brought to the place and the old dreary castle changed for the first time in years. It was a week of curiosity and surprise for Elsa, her world shifting as the mirrors were moved here and yonder. What used to be hideaways became views of the parlor and her favorite people watching spots showing a whole new part of the castle she had forgotten.

With the new nobles came a daughter of five. Besides the whole world changing it was the brightest part of Elsa’s future. A girl close to her age! Personally she didn’t remember how old she was, but she felt young. There had been no birthdays to look forward to, no reasons to be mature and be responsible so she had lost count. However, with the arrival of the daughter she resolved to be eight. It was a good three years older than the daughter, which was proper because she was older. She just didn’t know how much older.

There was no question, the daughter became Elsa’s favorite person, forgoing even Gerda, who she had known for however long as her most favorite of people with her stories and songs. As a girl of eight she envied the daughter. Elsa followed her throughout the castle, watching her lessons with interest and laughing silently at the pranks she conducted throughout the castle. She learned the daughter’s name was Anna, as everyone screamed it often enough when she got in trouble. Elsa decided it was a lovely name.

Elsa had even moved from the mirror in the attic, her most safe of hideaways that even the new lady of the house hadn’t moved, to sleep in Anna’s vanity mirror. It wasn’t any surprise that a curious and lonely Anna quickly noticed the person in the mirror.

 

At first Anna thought the girl was an illusion, something seen only at the corner of her eye. A cruel trick of the castle that her father had dragged her to. Even so, just the possibility of some playmate her age gave her hope. She looked high and low for the girl, exploring every nook of the castle she could access in search for her. When that failed she asked after the girl, but she didn’t appreciate the looks of amusement she got when she asked after the ‘blonde girl with a braid, who’s a little taller then me’. 

No, there weren’t any kids her age in the castle. Just old people and a few young adults that had better things to do than entertain the new lord’s daughter. Oh no, that was the job of the tutor her father had dragged along with them. She didn’t like the tutor and the tutor didn’t much like her either.

However, she knew she had seen the girl. She had seen her laughing even! It was one of the few times she could catch a full glimpse of the girl, since the blonde always closed her eyes and covered her mouth when she laughed the hardest. Needless to say Anna got into a lot of trouble her first month at the castle and became a right little terror for the maids. It was worth it, to make her laugh.

Even with as busy as her father was, assuming his new title of baronet and lord, he came down hard on her mischief and Anna was grounded to her room for her crimes. She was doomed to the plainest of food and a whole warm summer day spent within the confines of her four walls. As a child of five she considered it to be the closest thing to a sentencing of eternal boredom.

All of it was maddening. First the move from their cozy cottage in the village to a castle of all things. Then she found there was a girl that didn’t really exist, as she was apparently the only person who saw the illusive blonde. Discounting the illusion, there was also no other children in the whole of this rock prison! Her tutor hated her and she had driven the maids to such a froth they had pulled her father’s wrath down on her. Worse yet, it was the first time he had paid any whit of attention to her for the last few months!

She didn’t cry, oh no. Anna Fairweather was too old to cry, she just pouted while somehow getting some water got on her cheeks. Lamenting everything that had led up to this moment. This was nothing like her old room. For one the sound of her pouting echoed too well and it was far too large. It reminded her that this wasn’t home, no matter how pleased her mother and father were at their change in fortunes.

Her sobs had quieted down to gentle hiccups when she heard the sound. The sound of soft lonely humming. Wiping the water off her cheeks she sought it, eventually finding that it was loudest by her desk. She didn’t know why she thought to look in her mirror, but she was glad she did.

There in the mirror was the reflection of a girl that wasn’t her. She was curled in the rocking chair by the foot of her bed’s reflection, slowly rocking as she hummed. Anna’s jaw dropped, her mind trying to take in all of this. It… she turned her head to check the actual rocking chair but there was neither girl nor rocking. Whipping her head back she relaxed a bit when she realized the girl was still there.

Magic. There could be no other explanation after all of the stories she had been spoonfed since the cradle. With so many stories running in her mind she easily accepted the reality of what she saw and grew excited about it. Her mother had never read or told her any stories about little girls trapped in mirrors. An adventure of her very own that even included a damsel! This castle was looking better already!

Eager to solve the riddle of this curse she started to study the girl and the mirror itself. The mirror was fitted firmly to her vanity, held up by pink painted wood. Her own reflection wasn’t even in the mirror now that she started to study it. Somehow it was like she was looking into a perfect copy of the room, like through a window. The girl was wearing a light dress and was missing shoes. Which seemed odd, the stone floors were awfully cold at the strangest times. The most striking feature of the girl was her hair, which was either a light gold or platinum color. It was hard to tell when she was so far away in the mirror.

Her examination ended when she gave the glass a solid impatient poke, trying to see if it was similar to a magic door to another world. Nope, but her fingers didn’t smudge the surface instead making it gently ripple like water. The humming stopped and she looked up to see the girl looking at her in a mix of wonder and fear.

 

Elsa froze. Anna was staring straight at her, nose almost pressed up against the mirror. Her heart clenched and for the first time she felt the closest she ever had to physical pain. She was scared and for all of her she couldn’t think of what to do. So she stared dumbly at the girl, her mind blank and body shivering.

“Hello? Can you hear me? I hope so, I would look awfully silly talking to you when you can’t hear me. Or maybe not?” Anna looked up to the right, her mind thinking. She knew how to write and read, but did the girl in the mirror? She put her mind to work at solving this obstacle, refusing to let something as minor as a language barrier keep her from an adventure.

Elsa opened her mouth and another realization petered out. When had she last spoken? Had she ever? Still she tried, taking a deep swallow before she whispered.

“I can.” It came out quiet and more akin to a croak.

“Oh bother, I can’t hear you.”

Elsa gulped then started to walk over, speaking louder. “I can, hear you that is.”

“Joy of joys! Hello, my name is Anna Fairweather. As my mother would say, recent of those Fairweathers, but you can just call me Anna. I don’t care much for titles when they involve lessons and getting snubbed by uppity snobs.” Anna clapped her hands together, glad to finally be speaking to the girl in the mirror. A kid her age that she could talk with and, dare she think it, play with!

“O-oh? Well I’m Elsa. I can’t… remember my last name so I suppose I am just Elsa of the Mirror.”

“Elsa of the Mirror.” Anna’s voice went all dreamy at the notion. Elsa blushed before she rubbed it away, hoping that it didn’t show nearly as well as she thought it did.

It was the start of a long and quite amusing adventure.


	2. Growing Up

As Anna grew so did Elsa, as if she suddenly realized that was a thing children did. Games were played, arguments had and forgiven. Anna shared all of her joys and sorrows with her friend while Elsa did her best to soothe the younger girl’s worries and fears. Many was a night when her voice was the last thing the girl heard, a story on Elsa’s lips or some long ago song that eased her into dreams. 

The young lady loved it. With Elsa she hadn’t needed any other friend. Her time was filled with fencing lessons, schooling, lessons in being a lady and how to rule an estate. Then, when she was free from those expectations she was free to join in playing the various games they had brainstormed together. All games that they could share together; like hide and seek, board games and the like. Most of her classes she shared with Elsa, who was both a great student and more than willing to help explain things the tutor couldn’t quite get through Anna’s head. 

As they grew there was only two constants; their friendship and the underlying need to find a way to get Elsa out of the mirror. 

In time, Elsa grew to resent her existence in the mirror. Oh she could still, with great effort, interact with Anna’s world. She wanted to do more then play chess, than tuck Anna in when she forgot to do so for herself at night. To wander the courtyard by herself without the need for Anna to carry a hand mirror. She wanted to go out and discover the things that Anna did when she was outside of the sight of her mirrors. To taste chocolate and to get little bruises and scrapes from climbing trees! Most of all, to give Anna hugs and dare she think it, a kiss on the forehead. 

What good was being in a mirror if it left her out of so many things? 

For all that her resentment grew, so did her love for Anna. There wasn’t a month that passed that Anna didn’t try her best to find some lead or way to free her friend from the mirror. Each of the outrageous attempts an act of friendship, of hope. It was a passion that never wavered, and Elsa learned to respect Anna’s stubborn tenacity. 

And so ten years passed, like the calm before the storm. Until it came time for Elsa’s eighteenth birthday. 

“The Necromancer was killed?” Elsa spoke in confusion, bringing herself closer to the mirror that was between her and Anna, who was nodding eagerly. It was the one story she liked best because she knew the hero of it. Her father just didn’t wave it about like most men would have. 

“Yup. It’s why my family was made nobles by the king. I thought you knew?”

“Oh no. No one really tells me anything remember?” Most of her knowledge about the world came from observing it and what Anna told her. She hadn’t known that the war had ended, only that the young men had finally come home without being mostly dead or all the way dead all those years ago. The why and how of it had been something that everyone had seemed to know and never needed to repeat. 

“Well, my father killed the Necromancer, he took his sword and sliced his head clean off!” 

“Elsa? You okay? Too gory?”

“Yes, quite.”

“Sorry, I do get carried away so. How about you tell me how your day went?”

Elsa hesitated. Her day had gone like it always had. Watching other people have good or bad days while she just… waited. Most of what she brought up in conversations like this wasn’t even about her. It was her observations and it was a realization about herself that she was starting to regret. Still, she forced cheer as she tried to remember what she had to gossip about.

“Great. Did you hear about how the cook managed to burn a whole half of the biscuits?

 

Anna had long ago weaseled most of the details out of Elsa about her existence, but two secrets remained. The first being that it had actually been the late Necromancer that had cursed her. Then how to break her curse. She had always known for however long she had been cursed. The specifics on how she had kept to herself despite Anna’s attempts at brainstorming ways to rescue Elsa. Elsa hoped that one day Anna would be more reasonable, more patient. Breaking her curse would be dangerous and with as head strong Anna was she would rush feet first into it and likely die. 

Elsa wouldn’t let that happen for anything, not even her freedom.

Besides, she could manage many more years like this if it meant Anna was safe. Eventually the pain of captivity would fall to the wayside like it had as a child. Breaking her curse would be forgotten in favor of watching people and loving Anna. 

However, she pondered it almost daily since her eighteenth birthday and she couldn’t help herself.

Elsa slipped out of the side of the mirror. Instantly the world became wonky, fading quickly into this heavy murky dimness that clouded both sight and sound. She hated the in-between places. It felt like the gray murk dug itself into her ears and mouth, dusted itself against her eyes in such a way that it took her hours before she could see right again. Normally she just reappeared in the different mirrors at will, but this mirror had always been special, unconnected to the network of reflective surfaces throughout the castle. 

So it was the long uncomfortable walk from the closest mirror to the dungeons. 

Deep in a cell, locked away from both person and all but the most determined of light was a large mirror. It was by far the largest she had ever known and probably the largest in all the land. She hated it so. Not just for the trip that it took to arrive, but for the way it felt. It hurt, this place. 

Here in the dungeons she could feel the cold. Like a leech that drained away all the warmth in the world. Her throat burned and her stomach ate at itself like some furious beast. It hurt to be here. But here was the place she had to come for only one thing. 

In the room was a chest. One of the few secrets she knew about herself was what was in that chest. It was a glass orb that for all of her attempts she had never been able to enter. If it was in the light she knew there would be a small blizzard in its depths. Caught like she was. When she had the wish that she was real again, when it hurt even in the other mirrors she came here to stare at the chest. To try to see if wishing was enough to make that wish come true. All she had to do was break it. Break the orb and she’d be free of her own glass confines. 

To die surely, since the box wasn’t the only remarkable thing in the dark confines of the dungeon.

She felt the movement more than heard it. Like the other times she hid in the murky darkness, only letting her eyes look around the corner of the mirror’s surface and at the depths of the darkness of the dungeon. Elsa knew what it was, but it scared her just for knowing what it was. 

A skeleton rattled against the bars, its own dry bones clacking sharply against the metal. 

The sight made her waver. She had hoped the years would have worn it down since she had last looked. That the magic would have died with its master. But no, it still wandered the forgotten dungeon even years after the necromancer had fallen. Sword in one fist just as rags clung still to its bones. She knew who the skeleton had belonged to, and even who it currently belonged to despite his recent passing.

“Essssssa.” She shivered at the word, clamping a hand over her mouth. It didn’t move its head, seeming to know where she was despite not having made a sound since it had arrived. 

She escaped back into the murky dimness, racing as quickly as she could through the path she had long ago memorized. Not caring for once about the inability to see or hear the real world. Once she reached the mirror in the guard room she willed herself to Anna’s mirror. 

The change was instantaneous, and she shivered as she appeared in the mirror. The room was dark and quiet, meaning that her friend was missing. Probably having some fun or the like in the dining room. Maybe even sitting within the library and reading. 

The thought almost made her whisk herself away to the library, but she felt too tired to listen to anything today. It was a first and she hated it. Weary she pulled herself into Anna’s bed, wishing that Anna was here anyway. At the very least she could have listened to Anna ramble until she forgot about the dungeon again. Or until it was shifted aside for something else. 

Hidden in the dark, warm and safe, she fell asleep quickly and deeply.

Anna blinked as she woke from a dead sleep. She had felt someone slip into the bed. At first it had made her smile, remembering how her dad used to crawl up the stairs, no matter how tired he was or how late to sit on her bed. She used to stay up for the good-night kisses, no matter how often he lightly scolded her for staying up past her bedtime. 

It was a good memory until she realized her father had stopped doing that when she turned ten. 

She sat up quickly and looked at the side of the bed, almost freaking when she noticed the divot where a body should be. Instantly her eyes flicked to the mirror. The image held within it made her both relax and want to laugh. Elsa had fallen into her bed, curling up with a face that held the most adorable pout. Anna had no way of telling where Elsa had come from, but whatever it was had left her sullen and very tired. 

Anna reached over to the divot in her bed, sighing as she only felt the sheets under her fingers, not even warm from the being that laid on their reflection. 

“Night Elsa.” Anna curled in the divot, the closest she could come to her beloved friend.


End file.
